Is influencer marketing just hype or is it here to stay? Fourteen percent of marketers believe it’s “overhyped” while 92 percent of consumers trust influencers. Influencer marketing is fast replacing traditional marketing with 61 percent of marketers working with influencers on their marketing campaigns. People trust other people, that’s why.
In this article, we’ll find out why influencer marketing is different from traditional marketing, and how a special type of influencer marketing called international influencer marketing works. We’ll also see how language barriers can provide a problem for international influencer marketing. So, we’ll show you how translation services, in-house translation teams, and freelancers can all help you to connect to a global audience through influencer marketing.
Is influencer marketing slowly replacing traditional marketing? Yes in some ways, no in others. Traditional marketing is still here—of course, you’re going to still use content marketing, advertising, and digital marketing—but influencer marketing is ideal because technology is starting to change. Gone are the domination of TV, radio, and billboards—it’s now about social media, like Instagram. And it connects everyone in the world, everywhere, at any time.
Instagram and TikTok are major platforms of influencer marketing. For comms teams, this dashboard could be of use for Instagram. Influencers with strong brand recognition in a particular niche usually profile heavily in these campaigns. These campaigns can range from affiliate marketing to advertising. Here’s a chart from Big Commerce to determine which influencers to work with:
In comparison to advertising, influencer marketing can go through ad-blockers. People can shut off their TV or radio (compared to the internet, what is that?) or miss a billboard sign, but they can’t seem to be offline for long periods of time. Here are key trends to watch for influencer marketing. That’s why influencer marketing is here to stay, and with that, the advent of international influencer marketing.
On the other hand, international influencer marketing takes that logic even further–to a global mindset of local celebrities or influencers. The global spread of influencer marketing is supposed to hit 13.8 million by the end of 2021, Statista suggests. That’s why influencer marketing with a global focus is essential.
How to solve language barriers when it comes to influencer marketing through translation services
What to do when faced with language barriers? When you’re looking for an influencer overseas, you’re going to be looking for different metrics than the one you’re used to. Of course, you’ll still keep track of the influencer’s network, their followers, and impressions, clicks, and conversions on their pages and on your product or service.
But you’ll also be looking out for other things with your local influencer overseas–contextual credibility with their niche, ability to compete in the local culture, and the market maturity of their country’s market. Here’s a handy infographic for more information.
When looking for influencers, you may be faced with a major problem: the problem of language. How will your comms team go about communicating with a high-profile influencer with low English proficiency, for example? How to break the language barriers from comms to influencers? What to do if you have a global brand and want to communicate effectively to influencers in other countries?
Translation services, which provide language solutions to almost every industry imaginable, including the social media industry, can help in this endeavor. Translation services can help to secure a more global standing in the world of influencer marketing. They connect the influencer to more languages and eliminate barriers to communication in influencer-comms-teams relationships. It allows for the translation service to bridge the gap between comms teams, local influencers, and audiences.
Remote work accelerating the disconnect between influencers and a global audience
Everyone is online now. As we’ve seen previously, the internet is changing the way we work, live, and play. But what are the challenges to this?
Post-pandemic, comms teams, and influencers also have to take into account messages relayed remotely. How can this work from an international influencer perspective? Operations will have to be through remote work only. But remote work may be accelerating the disconnect between influencers and a global audience.
But at times, there could be a disconnect between an influencer and a global audience due to being remote. PR teams and influencers must rely on remote translation to relay marketing messages to the global audience.
For example, when an influencer speaks out for a certain cause, and without proper translation, it may cause some parts of the world to lose trust and credibility for the influencer–which leads to a huge PR mess.
Translation services, which also have a remote work model and have experience in translating all types of marketing messages, can also help a local influencer to make sure they’re relaying the right types of messages to their followers. They can also assist influencers not only in their local market but to branch out to target markets worldwide.
Key takeaways
Traditional marketing is slowly being replaced by influencer marketing, in some ways due to technology changing.
International influencer marketing can help expand the influencer’s reach to a global audience
Translation services can help in a variety of ways, helping to connect PR teams to influencers and helping to connect influencer messages to a global audience.
